My views on piracy might be ... controversial ... for lack of a better term (and my English is horrendous)
My motto is: "Pirate before you buy it" Why? Well, let's say you try a game that looks cool on Youtube and you watched some gameplay of it. You go to your local torrent dealer, get the game, and play it.
If it's not as good as you thought, no harm done - kinda. I mean, you didn't spend $5, $10, $30 or however much money a game just to be disappointed.
If you like it, you might consider buying it or buy it right away to support the developer(s)
Now as an indie, my views are the same. I do get we put lots of work and energy into our craft, but we can't stop piracy. And I know not everyone will like my views or agree with what I'll do for my game(s) once finished.
When my game is done and being sold (assuming I decide to sell it) - rather than someone else upload a torrent filled with viruses by the dozen - I'll just upload it with an included text file basically saying my motto. Why? Because one game can't suit everyone's tastes, and just because gameplay might look okay on a video doesn't mean you'll enjoy it. And if they truly like it, they'll buy it.
You can't stop piracy for anything, especially games. Could I take measures to try and stop it for my own game? Sure, but someone will always find a way around whatever I do - it's a fight we can never win - only postpone the problem for a little bit.
I'm not saying I support piracy 100%
Things like Spotify, Netflix, Hulu, and Steam seem to be good at making it easier for people to have access to movies, music, and games without taking the easy route: piracy. There will still be people who will pirate those things, but some honest people will continue to support creators and artists alike.
I know my motto makes it sound like I fully support or encourage piracy - I don't. In fact, if some games have demos I think there might be less pirated copies of games. Or not, who knows.
I'm actually getting kinda tired now and forget what my main point was ... so yeah, I'm out.
Whilst I have known people who do this, it is a very grey area. What constitutes enjoying a game? Is there a certain amount of time you have to "enjoy" the game for, before you consider it worthwhile? Basically, this comes down to an issue of replayability to an extent. Whilst I agree that games should be fun, and you shouldn't buy games you don't enjoy, I can say there have been quite a few games which I have only played for a few hours, in some case, a very small number of hours, but I still feel the developer deserved my money. Similarly, certain story driven games are quite short, or you may have to get deep into a game to actually be able to appreciate it or enjoy it.
This is often the case with films that have a great twist. You don't really experience it for everything it is until later on. Similarly, certain games may feel "generic" at the start, but unlock new routes to gameplay later on. Granted, you shouldn't have to slave for hours just to be able to enjoy a game, but if you have access to a world of pirated games, having that mindset is going to make you more inclined to only buy games that are instantly gripping. To be honest, I wouldn't have bothered with Fallout if I had only tried it for an hour and had a load of other games I could try as I found the first few hours quite dull, however I got into it later on, once I understood how the game worked.
Another point is that how do you respond to short games that you say enjoyed for 6 hours but had then completed? Do you then go and buy the game, knowing that you'll likely not play it much ever again? I feel this is where holes start to appear in that approach. It's like saying you'll buy a movie if you enjoyed it. If after watching the film you enjoyed it, you aren't just gonna buy it then to not watch it. If its really good, you may go and buy it before a 2nd watch, though I haven't met many people who would buy a film after the fact in order to not watch it, but just to support it.
Whilst this sort of system can work if someone is 100% honest about their experience, it can fall apart very quickly and it tends to fall into a system where the person say enjoys 40% of games (atleast to a worthwhile extent), but only goes and buys 20% of them. I know this is more extreme for AAA games where being disappointed is more brutal, however for Indie games, I think its just cheap not to take a stab at a game, especially if its something you have garnered entertainment from by watching. (I'm not saying you should buy games that you watch, but I'm saying that your 2nd hand experience might be diminished because you watched it first. A good example here for me is Watchdogs. I found the gameplay to be dull, and thus if I was using your "moral" pirating system, I wouldn't have bought the game because I found the story line boring. However, I did still get a fair bit of enjoyment just from running around, enjoying the atmosphere of the game, playing around with the side mechanics, interacting with the world etc; Therefore would that still be considered valid enjoyment, if you only enjoyed part of the game?)
Basically, I feel like this is a poor excuse that people make for themselves to justify stealing..